


. s h a t t e r e d.

by ShawnArms



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Confused Luke Skywalker, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I'm Sorry, Luke Skywalker Needs A Hug, Protective Ahsoka Tano, References to Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), Return of the Jedi, Star Wars rebels - Freeform, That's Not How The Force Works (Star Wars), The World Between Worlds (Star Wars), What Have I Done, and you can't convince me otherwise, are those even a thing, force butterflies, is this meta?, missing moment, or maybe it does, this is what happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:14:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29486628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShawnArms/pseuds/ShawnArms
Summary: “What’s your name? Do you know where we are?” he tried again, kneeling down in front of him. This time, the stranger was able to understand the question, partly at least.“I - my name?” he looked down at his hands, and the lightsaber he was clutching. That seemed to give him clarity. “Anakin. My name’s Anakin.”...In which Luke gets sucked into the world between worlds and meets a very young, and very confused, Anakin Skywalker.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	. s h a t t e r e d.

Luke was curled up on the floor, trying to shake off the last of the electricity that had almost fried his body, when it happened. His brain was still lagging a bit and it took him a while to make sense of what was going on around him.

He remembered asking Vader for help before blacking out for a few moments, hearing him shout with that deep voice of his. Then he had felt his heavy footsteps reverberating on the metal floor, the smell of ozone mixing with oxygen, before one high-pitched scream had pierced the air, coming from the Emperor himself. His father had thrown him down the Death Star reactor shaft.

Then silence, interrupted here and there by Vader’s wheezing. Luke had become used to the low noise that had punctuated the man’s mechanical breathing, but what he was hearing now didn’t sound good. At all.

From where he was lying, Luke saw Vader collapse on the pavement and had been about to try and stand up when the floor opened under him. The literal floor, or at least a perfect circle two meters wide, disappeared and he fell.

The void engulfed him. Luke sank, lower and lower in that black, empty immensity that surrounded him and couldn’t do anything to stop his descent. He knew he hadn’t simply plummeted inside some of the lower levels of the battle station because it all felt so weird and wrong: the air drag wasn’t slowing him down, there wasn’t any, and he was quite literally falling into nothingness

His first instinct had been to panic. There wasn’t much he could have done about that, after all the Jedi remained simple living beings who could not be exempted from feeling all the range of basic emotions. And he dared anyone not to be terrified after seeing reality vanish from around them.

Reality. Luke was pretty sure that whatever was going on had to be something else entirely. It couldn’t be a dream, or a nightmare for that matter, either: he remembered seeing the hole come into existence, falling in it, and watching it close up over his head. Something was up.

His train of thoughts was abruptly interrupted by his boots-clad feet touching the ground with a loud thump. Somehow, he had reached the end of whatever place - or world - he had been sucked into, and its bottom seemed to be pretty solid under his soles.

Luke crouched down and touched it. The surface he was standing on was smooth and kinda resembled durasteel, but it wasn’t as slippery.

_Weird._

Standing up, he had a look around and noticed that the darkness wasn’t as impenetrable as he had thought it to be. On the contrary he could see the sharp - _edges?_ of the walls that stood around him. They weren’t walls, _exactly_ , because Luke saw that they didn’t seem to have nor a beginning nor an if he really focused on it, but apparently his brain was having troubles processing it, so it had decided to translate what he was seeing into something more familiar. Not that it mattered, because the next thing he noticed was how the blackness looked as though it was _glowing_ dimly on its own, explaining how it was possible for him to see into the dark.

Tentatively, he closed his eyes and reached out with the Force. His Jedi senses weren’t as sharp as they should have been for someone his age - he was still _learning,_ and one day he would get there - but Ben and Yoda had taught him enough for him to be able to pick up other life forms signatures in the Force. Which was exactly what happened after Luke had been searching for a while.

A faint ripple, so soft that had he not been paying as much as attention, he probably wouldn't have picked it up. It originated from somewhere straight ahead of him, and the only thing Luke could do right then was head in its direction.

He walked, and walked, his focus on that soft humming that was growing slowly but steadily stronger. He didn’t expect the scenery to change, for Luke almost felt like he was trapped in a big black box, but by the time he noticed that it _had_ the butterflies were already gone.

They had appeared after some time. Tiny, blue little things that had been hovering mid-air: there hadn’t been many, a couple of dozen maybe, but Luke had had to stop to take a look at them. They didn’t resemble those he had seen in pictures up until then, rather, the insects looked stylized and reduced to simple shapes.

Four gentle ovals intertwined with each other that served as wings, nothing more.

He had outstretched a hand, not even trying to touch them, but they had come anyway, their soft blue glow in sharp contrast with the black of his robes. The butterflies had circled his palm, tickling him slightly, then wound up his arm and around his head and shoulders without making any sound at all.

In the Force they were bright, and echoed the same way that distant hum had, so Luke guessed that whoever, or whatever, else was there was also responsible for them. So, he had continued walking, closing the distance between him and the mysterious stranger.

The darkness had been slowly fading to greyness, lighter and lighter, and when Luke finally reached the point where it waned into white, he was at last able to see _him._

A young man was sitting cross-legged on the floor with his head bowed low, dark-blonde curly hair hiding the rest of his face. He was wearing what looked like old Jedi robes, much different from those Obi-Wan had owned, and both his hands were covered by dark brown gloves which reached up to his elbows.

Distantly, he thought that there was something _oddly_ familiar about him.

Even if he hadn’t spotted the hilt of the lightsaber the man was clutching tightly, marking him as a Force-user, Luke knew that the stranger was deep into meditation. His broad shoulders were slightly hunched forward, and sometimes shook together with the rest of his body.

The Force seemed to simmer around him, restless: whatever he was seeing, it probably wasn’t pleasant. So, Luke didn’t really regret it when he bowed down to place a hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently.

The man snapped out his meditation and lifted his head, revealing red-brimmed blue eyes and a tear-streaked face. Luke expected him to be startled by his sudden appearance, he would have been, but soon noticed that there was something definitely off about him.

His eyes were clouded, his gaze clearly out of focus. Even his movements were slow, as if moving caused him a great deal of pain.

“Hello?”

The man - boy? he looked fresh out of his teenage years - inclined his head and looked up at him, but something told Luke that he probably couldn’t really see him, for only the very ill couldn’t physically focus their attention on those speaking to them, and he wasn’t staring at him, but at a point somewhere over Luke’s head.

“What’s your name? Do you know where we are?” he tried again, kneeling down in front of him. This time, the stranger was able to understand the question, partly at least.

“I - my name?” he looked down at his hands, and the lightsaber he was clutching. That seemed to give him clarity. “Anakin. My name’s Anakin.”

_Oh._

He should have recognised the hilt between the boy’s hand, since he too had clutched it, a lot of times. So that was what he had looked like, a long time ago? What had _happened_ to him?

“Father?” but Anakin’s eyes had unfocused again, and he didn’t even acknowledge what Luke called him. Something flashed over his face and now he really, did look like he was in tremendous pain.

“Dad?” Luke tried again, a hint of desperation in his voice. He didn’t understand what was happening, nor why he had been dragged there, but it didn’t seem possible to him that the boy sitting in front of him was who he claimed to be. Even if everything pointed to it.

Surprisingly, that got through whatever was clouding his mind. And for a second, he almost believed that Anakin had recognised him.

“Who - who are you?” he asked, his soft voice trembling.

“I’m Luke, I - I’m your son. Do you recognise me?” 

“Where’s Ahsoka?” Anakin retorted, sounding vaguely alarmed. He looked around, probably searching for that person he had just mentioned. “She was - I was - No. The Son, I’m supposed to stop him. But he told me - he _showed_ me. How? How did it happen?”

_The Son?_

“Who’s Ahsoka? Whose son are you talking about?” Luke took his father's hands in his, hoping to calm him down, at least enough for his mind to clear. It looked like whatever had happened, it had messed with Anakin’s mind, splitting his memories and mangling them.

Anakin stared down at their joined hands, and actually _smiled._

“I did it, didn’t I? It’s over. Obi-Wan’s gonna be so happy”

That last sentence made Luke smile sadly, but he knew there was no point in explaining what had happened, he wouldn’t have understood it anyway.

“He is, father, he is.”

Then his father’s face contracted in a horrified grimace. Apparently, he remembered.

“NO! No, I would never!” he sounded devastated, and whatever memory came up next only worsened it. “No, please, no. Not Ahsoka too, no!” with that he retracted his hands from Luke’s gentle grip and hid his face behind his fingers. A small pained noise escaped the other’s lips and Luke desperately wished he hadn’t been forced to see the ghost of the man his father had been in that condition.

He felt so helpless, and watching a boy younger than him confront his own terrible future was too much. He turned away, needing to catch his breath. Only, his eyes set on someone else’s boots, which were stained brown with dirt.

Luke looked up and his eyes met those of female Togruta. She was very tall and lean, and looked to be about middle-aged, her white and blue montrals long and wrinkly. Her face was kind and there was gentleness and wisdom in her eyes, surrounded by her own peculiar facial markings.

The woman’s sharp features were softened by a bright, sad smile.

“I may be wrong, but from what I gather you could be Ahsoka.” said Luke, taking the hand she was offering him to haul himself upright.

“Yes, that’s me.” she laughed and then proceeded to lower the hood of her cape. “Good manners would have me ask you what your name is, but you two look so much alike that there’s no mistaking you. You’re Luke, aren’t you?”

He nodded and studied her, trying to guess what kind of relationship she and his father had shared.

“You knew my father?”

“Indeed, he and Obi-Wan were my best friends, the closest thing I’ve ever had to a family.”

“So, you too are a Jedi?” Luke asked, and saw a shadow of old pain flash in Ahsoka’s eyes.

“I was, a long time ago. But not anymore.” That confused him, because he could see Ahsoka’s right hand loosely wrapped around a thin piece of metal that sticked out from under her long, grey cape. A lightsaber, obviously.

“You can stop being a Jedi?”

Something shifted on her face and her gaze hardened, but she didn’t look mad at him and was probably thinking about something that happened to her.

“For you being a Jedi roughly means being able to use the Force, swing a lightsaber and help people, right?”

“Something like that, yeah, Ben and Master Yoda never told me much about the past, but I picked up a few things over the years. Every time I tried to ask them about the old Jedi Order they just - changed the subject?”

Ahsoka exhaled, shook her head, and rolled her eyes. Luke stretched out with the Force to try and understand what her actions meant, but what he found was only light amusement and something that suspiciously felt like fond exasperation.

“Of course they would, of course.” she took a breath and looked at him, smiling “Being a Jedi Knight for the Republic was much more than that, once. It was a way of living, of thinking, of _breathing._ ”

_Finally,_ Luke thought, _someone that isn’t afraid of answering questions_.

“We were soldiers, and we were so many. The Jedi Order fought to bring peace to the galaxy, raising fearless beings that wanted nothing but to help those in need and who could not defend themselves on their own. It took strength and discipline, hard work and courage.”

“Then why did you leave?” Luke asked, amazed by what she was telling him. He could not even begin to imagine a whole galaxy full of people like him, like _them_.

“The details aren’t important, but remember, even the mightiest warriors sometimes make terrible mistakes. Sometimes, they forget to think with their own heads, and take comfort in old traditions passed down from master to apprentice and forget that things - _people_ \- aren’t just black and white. It’s much more complicated than that.”

Luke could see, now, that she had indeed been around Obi-Wan. They both liked to tell the truth in their own way, but Ahsoka had succeeded in delivering the message she had wanted to convey: the Jedi Order had had his flaws, and one shouldn’t always believe everything they were told. Sometimes, breaking rules was for the better.

“And what about him?” Luke asked, turning towards Anakin, who was once again lost in his own thoughts. He didn’t see the woman’s expression, but it wasn’t necessary: the wave of affection that came off her was unmistakable, for he had mirrored it many times when thinking about Leia. Ahsoka had clearly been like a sister to his father, and for a moment he almost felt like he was intruding in something he should not have witnessed.

She probably sensed what he had been thinking and sent a swell of reassurance in his direction, for which he was immediately grateful for.

“Anakin, I don’t even know where to start.” Luke turned and saw just how much pity there was in her eyes. “He never had a chance at an easy life, and being a Jedi as powerful as he was certainly didn’t make it better. The Council never trusted him fully and with Chancellor Palpatine’s influence over him, all the good there was in him was slowly poisoned.”

She paused, and for a few seconds neither of them spoke. The silence was heavy with all those things Ahsoka had implied, but hadn’t spoken out loud. Luke, for all it mattered, was sure that he didn’t want to hear them now.

“And trust me on this, Luke, there was so _much._ ” Ahsoka put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. “He had such a big heart that sometimes, his body was way too small to contain the magnitude of the emotions that flowed through him. That was a part of him which the Jedi were never able to tame.”

“I believe you, and I sensed it, too. There was good in him, even if Vader tried to pretend there wasn’t.”

Ahsoka squeezed Luke’s shoulder once more and then stepped forward to kneel in front of Anakin. She lifted a hand and put it on his cheek, lifting his face towards hers.

“Hi Skyguy, long time no see.”

Luke’s heart clenched painfully when he saw just how rapidly his father’s eyes widened in shock, the swift change in his body language. Then and there, Anakin Skywalker was back, even if for just a moment.

“Ahsoka?” his voice was feeble but steady. “You - you look different.” 

She shook her head, and then inclined it fondly.

“And you haven’t aged a day, Master.”

Now, it was time for Luke’s eyes to widen, for he finally understood why looking at them hurt for some reason he hadn’t been able to place until then: Ahsoka, to Anakin, had been what Luke had been to Obi-Wan first and Yoda later.

“Wait! You were -” was all he managed before stopping mid-sentence. A ghost of a word had started to form itself on his lips, one he had never spoken but whose meaning was as clear as day. Ahsoka turned to face him, her face lit up with joy, and for a second her image flickered allowing Luke to see a younger version of her crouching near his father.

Master and apprentice, reunited.

“Yes Luke, I was your father’s Padawan.”

Anakin’s head turned once more towards him, but he wasn’t there, not anymore. He glanced over and gave him the impression of a droid trying - and failing - to make sense of a particularly difficult puzzle.

“Why is he like this? Is it because the Emperor’s struck him?”

“No, not entirely.” Ahsoka replied, not leaving Anakin’s side just yet. “This version of him you see in front of you is the one from the last years of Clone Wars. We had visited this planet called Mortis and, long story short,” she paused briefly, trying to find the words “the personification of the dark side of the Force gave him a vision of his future.”

_Oh._

“So he _knew_? All along?”

“No, he forgot, we all did when we left. The shock and the pain were so great that, apparently, he got himself stuck here, somewhere in the middle of his past, present,” she pointed at him “and future.” She gestured to herself.

“So that’s why he’s like that?” Luke asked, even though he already knew the answer to his own question.

“Yes, the Anakin you see only has his own memories. The rest of it, that’s us. His brain is trying to make sense of what the Force is showing him, and some of it he’ll be able to pierce together, but the rest he can only perceive it as a bystander.”

“But then, how did you _know_ where you were when you got here? Have you been here before?” he asked, because it had only then occurred to him that she didn’t appear to be confused by that whole situation.

“Something like that.” she replied, smiling conspiratorially.

“Ahsoka, who’s that?” 

As if hearing his name had belatedly caught his attention, his father looked over once more, but his eyes weren’t as lost.

“Someone you haven’t had the chance to meet yet.” she said slinging an arm around his shoulders, even if he didn’t seem to notice.

“But why does he look so familiar?”

“Don’t worry, one day you’ll understand.”

Luke approached them and took his father’s hand again. Something in Ahsoka’s eyes told him their time there was almost over, and he could feel it too: Anakin’s consciousness was growing stronger and while he still did not register all that was being said, the basic concepts behind their words were starting to make enough sense to his shattered mind.

“You will save me, one day.” Luke said, making Anakin’s face light up. He radiated such genuine wonder that Luke had to steady himself once more.

_Blast, this is getting hard._

“R-Really?”

“Yes _dad_ , you will.” That same trick had worked before, and Luke could only hope that once their time together was over, his father’s younger self would remember about their meeting, even if only unconsciously. He deserved that much.

“Will I be able to save everyone?”

Ashoka cut in with such gentleness that her comforting presence seemed to be making the entire air around them warmer by a few degrees.

“Yes Master, you will, just like you always wanted.”

“I only ever wanted to help.”

“We know Anakin, we know.”

Right then, Luke felt something strong pull at him. It was time to go, and he still had work to do in the real world: his father might have saved him from certain death, but now it was his turn to return the favour. Even if Darth Vader had virtually ceased to exist Anakin Skywalker was still near the reactor shaft, waiting for his son.

Luke bowed his head and said goodbye to Ahsoka through the Force. Maybe one day they would meet again, if they were lucky.

She smiled, and then vanished, together with Anakin. He felt his body being violently dragged upward and for one, foul moment, Luke thought that in that last flash of light something had shone in his father’s eyes, the briefest hint of what he had really been like all those years ago.

Mischief. A playful, good-hearted glimmer of his true self.

Before being dumped on the cold steel of the Death Star, ready to sprint up and get his father to safety, one last idea flashed through his mind.

_I can only imagine what a handful he must have been growing up but blast, in another life I would have liked to be his friend._

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> *taps microphone* Is this on?
> 
> Well, hello there! This is my first time posting here in the Star Wars AO3 section and I'm actually somewhat terrified. I can only hope you liked this _thing _I just wrote and if you did, STAY TUNED!! Something more is coming, very soon.__
> 
> _  
> _A big thanks to Cecilia, my obikin-partner-in-crime, with whom I happen to share my last braincell. This one goes out to you.__  
> 


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